Larry Kart

No shit... It's like I said about Wayne in another thread, there's certain players that I get "friendly" with, and for them, I dig checking out wherever they decide to go, because that's what most people I dig do - they move around, always curious, not in a "I Can't Decide Who I Am" type way, but in an "Let Me See What THIS Is All About, It Might Appeal To Me In Some Form Or Fashion, Some Of It". And sometimes where they go ends up being a dead end, sometimes they end up looking but not touching, and sometimes they actually find somethings that open them up a little more to be somebody a little different than they were before. As that pertains to Sonny, well, I remember Larry saying in one of our periodic Sonny Spats a few years ago that he didn't hear any joy in any of Sonny's later work (that's a paraphrase, iirc). And sorry, but that's just....not plausible in my mind. But ok, what can I say other than I hear it, he doesn't. It's just that I find the notion that something like this marks "the beginning of the end" for Rollins is something that I find nothing short of absurd, true only if it's your definition of what "the end" is, and true only if that definition is formed entirely from what you think the world is. Otherwise, there's been a lot of good-to-great music made by the man, and the end is nowhere in sight. Even if it ain't "like it was", it's still good-to-great (and yeah, some duds, too, like you say , you pays your money...) in the "like it is" world, and can't nobody do what Sonny Rollins does in that world but Sonny Rollins. I don't remember saying that, and it doesn't sound like something I'd say, but.... I will say, though, that after a certain point (with exceptions) Sonny reminds of the smell of a falafel stand at the end of day three of a street fair.

That was among my reactions.

If you get it (the record contract) the way he did, it's at least a misdemeanor.

Hey, in the world we're talking about, once you're a phenom, you can only become a force. Ask Christopher Hollyday. Actually, the whole J. Redman thing always has been so perfect that I'm waiting for the revelation, sure to come eventually, that either there is no such guy or that there is and his real name is Jacob Garfein.

"Jazz is people!" Oy vey.

I would have agreed -- still do.

She was in great form on Oliver Nelson's "Afro-American Sketches," which is a helluva album.

Finally broke down and got it from the library. Soon (page 5) came across this marvelously representative Ross idiocy: "The heroic narratives of nineteenth-century music, from Beethoven's symphonies to Wagner's music dramas, invariably ended with a blaze of transcendence, of spiritual overcoming. Mahler and Strauss told stories of more circuitous shape, often questioning the possibility of a truly happy outcome." Yes, the "Ring" has a "truly happy outcome." "Tristan" too. On page 11 Ross himself writes: "The story of the 'Ring' was, in the end, one of hubris and comeuppance: Wotan, the chief of the gods, loses control of his realm and sinks into 'the feeling of powerlessness.'" And then a touch of Ross's pervasive fake-hamisch, upside-down vulgarity: "[Wotan] resembles the head of a great bourgeois family whose livelihood is destroyed by the modernizing forces that he himself has set in motion." Another gem: "On the train back to Vienna [after the premiere of Strauss's "Salome"], Mahler expressed bewilderment over his colleague's success. He considered 'Salome' a significant and audacious piece .... and could not understand why the public took an immediate liking to it. Genius and popularity were, he apparently thought, incompatible. Traveling in the same carriage was ... poet and novelist Peter Rosegger. According to Alma [Mahler], when Mahler voiced his reservations, Rosegger replied that the the voice of the people is the voice of God -- Vox populi, vox dei. Mahler asked whether he meant the voice of the people at the present moment or the voice of the people over time. Nobody seemed to know the answer to that question." (My emphasis.)

http://www.audiophilesales.com/prod/main.a...d=14&cat=-1 Needed something to put my stuff on now that I'm beginning to put things in the basement after a flood (believe it or not, before I had components literally resting on top of other components), and a guy I know in L.A. who fixed my excellent but initially defective Creek amp pointed me to a dealer in that area who recommended Cambre stuff and suggested I look for a store in my (Chicago) area that carried it. There was none I could find, so I ordered it by mail from the above place in Indianapolis (arrived in one day), and the difference I can hear is beyond what I would have thought possible. Anti-resonance is their principle. Rack looks nice too. Have no connection with this outfit, except that I gave them my money.

A Winogrand link: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/12903 Worth a look.

He wrote at least one about the Chicago scene in '68-9.

I once walked two miles on a knee in need of surgical repair to buy a copy of Winogrand's OOP "Figments from the Real World."

That link is way out of date. Pullman severed all ties with FSG many years ago and is now (fingers crossed) with another publisher (the one I pointed him to).

I'll try to check and report back.

Leonard Featherweight.

I love Eubie's Warner Brothers LP "Marches I Played On The Old Ragtime Piano," ragged-up marches (Sousa, etc.) with Milt Hinton, Panama Francis, Buster Bailey, and Kenny Burrell on rhythm guitar. Swings like a tidal wave. The man's time was something else. Recorded in 1959, when Eubie was still in his late adolesence.

At some point I told myself to stop worrying about or trying to explain (to myself or to anyone else), or especially just "accepting" the enigma that is Sonny Rollins. I think the simple answer for some time has been -- to invert JS's conclusion while adopting his "at face value" approach -- that it is what it isn't.

When was the last time Moye was around town? Baby Dodds? Dave Tough? Ike Day?

So sad. In the words of Pres: "It's the same all over, you fight for your life until death do you part, and then you got it made..."

New name to me. Have to check him out.

Did Dexter have an aura or what?

The full quote -- and I can re-create the moment in my head precisely -- is "Ah, yes, the Hankenstein. He was so hip." Another remark from the same encounter, which might be rendered thus: Did you ever expect to see a bebop tenor saxophonist looking down on Michigan Avenue about to order ca-viar from room service?

Could be, but it sounded like he was making everything he tried for, with no particular strain. BTW, I'm sure this has come up before, but in page 99 of Ira Gitler's "Swing to Bop," Bailey says of fellow Clevelander Freddie Webster: "I happen to know ... that on the [Charlie Parker] recording of 'Billie's Bounce' that [Miles Davis'] solo was exactly the one that Freddie played for that particular blues. Evidently Miles said he was nervous and couldn't think of anything to play, so he did Freddie's solo note for note." It's a lovely chorus and certainly sounds Webster-like.

Right -- but there he was the leader of a team and interpreting a chart, not stepping out front and telling his own story.

For instance, don't you get the feeling that BB liked playing in a section more than he did taking a solo? Not that the former can't be great thing to do if you're in the right band, but for some guys it may also be a way of hiding out.